#12 Finishing the Right Quarter Panel

Most of the sub structure has already been taken care of.  The trunk floor extension was replaced, the lip of the outer wheel housing repaired, and an internal brace repaired.  But before welding the outer skin of the quarter panel on, I made sure all the surfaces I would be welding to were ground down to good clean steel.  Otherwise the MIG welder wouldn't be able to do it's job.

In this view below, the lip of the wheel opening can be seen after a good going over with the grinder.  In the background you can see where the trunk floor was welded to the aft end of the wheel housing.  The black thing leaning against the car is the new quarter panel. 

Here is another view of the quarter panel.  You can see where I drilled holes for welding through along the edges.  I have also primed the inside because it is much easier than doing it from inside the trunk.       

In this view you can see the special rust preventative paint I applied to the areas where I had welded.  This is the section between the door and the rear wheel opening.  The shiny edge along the bottom is the top of the rocker panel, where the bottom of the quarter panel will weld to.

The curved piece is the track the quarter window rides in as it pivots up when you turn the crank.  No electric windows in this baby!

Here the panel has been welded on.

  
At this point it looks like a Dr. Frankenstein creation.

 Here is a closer view.  You can see the round rosette welds where the holes had been drilled.  You can also see I welded along the edge too.  This gives it much more strength.

Here you can see where I have started grinding the welds down. 

















After all the welds have been ground down, including the ones in the door jamb and wheel opening, they are covered with plastic body filler or as most people call it, Bondo. In this blurry picture below you can see where the welds along the top edge have been covered with filler.

Here is a close up view of the lower portion of the door jamb after I put a thin coat of filler on it.

Here is what it looked like before the filler.












                                                       

While trying to sand down the Bondo in the lower part of the door jamb, I spotted an empty spool from a roll of MIG welding wire.  I used a piece of self adhesive air file paper and trimmed it along the edge.  The curve of the spool matched the curve of the door jamb and worked perfect for smoothing the Bondo.  In the background you can see some small pieces of wood that I used to clean out the channel you see here where the trunk gasket goes.

Here is a view showing the filler along the top of the quarter and in the door jamb.















Applying Bondo to the areas on the quarter panel put me near other areas that needed filling also.  

This is a closeup view of the right rocker panel (just forward of the door jamb) showing all the layers of paint that had to be removed.  

Toward the bottom you can see the Bondo with rust showing beneath it.  All of this filler had to be removed and the rust treated before reapplying and smoothing out.

At the other end of the quarter the entire rear body panel across the rear of the car needed completely redone.  Someone had filled the long strip below & between the tail lights with way too much bondo.  They did not even match the original contour.

The area around both tail light openings had old Bondo that was comming off.  It all had to be ground off and replaced.

Here you can see the lower rear body panel and the rear tail light area after I had replaced all the bondo. 















This is the finished product after a good coat of primer.

 




 Next item for restoration will be the trunk lid and the lip around the opening. 



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